WarriorFX

People engaged in resistance training programs often seek out exercise machines that isolate individual muscles. While the intention is usually to train more effectively or safely, committed bodybuilders must resist a natural human urge to travel the easiest route. This instinctual reaction helped prehistoric populations survive during widespread periods of famine. However, procuring food is far less of a concern in modern societies and taking easy routes often leads to embracing nothing more than complete laziness. Today, we exist in a world surrounded by automation – technology set on minimizing physical exertion from daily existence. Societies have replaced hunting and gathering provisions with fast-food restaurants and quick-stop markets. Community activities are becoming exceedingly rare; exchanged for convenient Internet-hosted real-time chat rooms, topic-based forums and robust e-mail systems. In line with their genetic programming to limit energy output, modern man is accustomed to seeking out mechanical assistance at all cost. Continue reading

“Muscle maturity” is often mentioned when comparing bodybuilders competing on stage. Typically, the term is used to explain why a young bodybuilder has a harder time reaching the hard and grainy look of someone older, or otherwise much more experienced. Preaching the possibility of gaining muscle maturity is often an effort to reassure a new bodybuilder of future potential. However, actually defining muscle maturity is quite debatable – exactly what it is depends on whom you ask. Continue reading

Muscle memory is a phrase commonly referenced by strength trainees and coaches; however, most use the term incorrectly or fail to totally grasp the relationship to general motor skill ability. The majority of strength athletes simply believe muscle memory refers to an ability to regain muscle, strength lost from an extended period of detraining. More accurately, muscle memory is not the cause of regaining strength but the effect strength training has on the nervous system’s ability to properly activate a muscle intended to perform a specific movement.

Motor memory refers to recalling specific motor skills. Proper motor skills are required for the muscles, brain, skeleton, joints and nervous system to work together efficiently toward accomplishing a task. Muscle memory is properly defined as the body’s collective ability to memorize and perform well rehearsed muscular contractions. Continue reading

Bodybuilders should take advantage of what science provides to create an optimal training program. Through research and personal experience, an ultimate program is created. The creation of new movements compels athletes to question the validity and effectiveness of previous routines. Bodybuilders and powerlifters want to know what exercises will produce the quickest, most effective and safest results. The real answer is: there is no best exercise or training technique, since each has an appropriate time and place in an athlete’s program.

Exercise selection inevitably depends on the phase of training along with the anatomical and physiological properties of the exercise. The first step toward proper exercise selection is the classification of all exercises according to their specific physiological response. Continue reading

New trainees frequently enter a resistance training routine understanding one basic principle: push or pull a load for a predetermined amount of repetitions. However, there is a lot more to understand about each repetition and how it affects muscular failure and subsequent growth.

Muscle contractions are often confused with muscle shortening due to the nature of the word “contract.” Muscular contractions are involved whenever the muscle produces tension – its sole purpose. Skeletal muscle can raise, lower or resist a load; classified as concentric, eccentric or isometric, respectfully. The type of muscle contraction is determined by the motion of the associated joints and how the muscle transforms in response to the load. Continue reading

It doesn’t matter how dedicated the athlete, interruptions from training are inevitable. Periods of inactivity are frequently due to life’s unplanned events. Occasionally these phases are scheduled to avoid overreaching or allow recovery from an onset of overtraining syndrome. Unfortunately, a prolonged reduction in training efforts, or discontinuing all together, can result in a partial or complete reversal of training-induced adaptations. Muscular detraining is the result of marked decreases or cessation of physical activities. Continue reading